


the wait is long, my dream of you does not end

by shivroys_fucktoys



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, Porn with Feelings, Secret Relationship, and brought to you by two dykes with nothing to do and absolutely nothing to lose, but its only okay to do if said character is an absolute fucking milf, dyke culture is making up an astounding amount of lore for a character with two lines per episode, fic sponsored by the milf association in collaboration with the gilf appreciation council, roman has no rights (canon compliant), tw for gerri being a gemini
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:22:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28414593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shivroys_fucktoys/pseuds/shivroys_fucktoys
Summary: Gerri and Karolina have been sleeping together since Karolina came to the company as an intern in the 90s. Two decades later they've both matured a great deal, but how much has really changed?
Relationships: Gerri Kellman/Karolina Novotney
Comments: 13
Kudos: 19





	the wait is long, my dream of you does not end

**Author's Note:**

> stan karolina novotney or die by our really big sword

Karolina taps at her iPad, not paying attention to the screen as she finishes her email and sends it off. She’s sitting in the corner of the jet, perched beside Gerri with her tablet resting on one knee and Gerri’s hand resting on the other out of nothing but habit, and if they weren’t sitting on a plane surrounded by the wealthiest family in the Western world, Karolina would take Gerri’s hand and guide it up her skirt just to see what she’d do. Probably fuck her. Equally likely she’d slap Karolina across the face and go back to her phone. 

Logan is gone, for the moment at least, probably to be rude to someone, and Kendall’s got headphones on, his eyes closed as he listens to some awful rap music he claims gets him pumped up. Pumped up for what, exactly, Karolina isn’t sure. Shoplifting from bodegas? Snorting coke in public restrooms? Riding on the back of a motorcycle because he’s incapable of driving himself? Letting Karolina clean up all his messes without so much as a nod of acknowledgement? She can hear Roman bullying Greg, hissing his patented nasty little jibes in Greg’s general direction, and she wonders why Roman bothers anymore. Greg either doesn’t care or doesn’t notice that he’s being insulted by every single member of the Roy family, and Karolina would admire him for it if she wasn’t certain that it was the former. 

Karolina leans in, shifting closer to Gerri and breathing her in. Gerri smells of the same perfume she’s been wearing for twenty years and she’s wearing glitzy earrings and Karolina resists the urge to sink her teeth into Gerri’s pulse, flick her tongue over the place she knows makes Gerri’s entire body shudder. Instead she shifts her gaze upwards, brings her mouth very close to Gerri’s ear, and murmurs in her ear, letting her breath travel across Gerri’s skin. “Gerri?”

“Hm?” Gerri doesn’t look up from her phone, her lips pursed, and Karolina moves closer still, her nose practically pressed into Gerri’s hair. To anyone else, it might look like they’re whispering about business deals, about any number of the goddamn disasters that the Roys leave in their wake, about a thousand fucking things that this shitshow of a family hand off to other people to clean up, and Karolina almost bites down on Gerri’s earlobe just to feel her shiver. 

“I miss you.” Karolina breathes, and Gerri looks up sharply, her mouth pressing into a tighter line as she glances at Karolina overtop her glasses. She’s always looked at Karoline like that, disapproving, lips pursed and gaze unreadable, and that look has never failed to make Karolina’s stomach clench pleasantly. Gerri shuts her phone off, resting it on her leg, and leans over to whisper back into Karolina’s ear, her breath hot and bracing and enough to make Karolina sweat. 

“For someone in PR you have terrible timing,” Gerri hisses, her voice as sharp as always, hand clamping down tighter on Karolina’s bare knee. Her hand is warm, nails painted a pale beige and neatly manicured. Gerri is always carefully put together, hair always the same shade of ash-blonde, makeup always light and natural, eyebrows plucked perfectly and glasses kept clean, even after leaving Karolina a mess she’s flawless, and she leans closer still, voice dripping with contempt. “We’re on a fucking private jet.”

“I know,” Karolina answers, keeping her face entirely neutral, and she ignores Kendall’s curious look as she lowers her voice another fraction. The last thing she needs is Kendall fucking Roy overhearing her whispering sweet nothings into Gerri’s ear. It probably wouldn’t affect her career, Gerri’s either, but it would be painfully uncomfortable the next time Karolina is called to bail Kendall out of mall jail for shoplifting a shirt he could buy a million times over. “I just need you to fuck me so bad.” 

“Right now?” Gerri glances around, at the middle-aged men surrounding them, and Karolina nods, her stylus twisting in her fingers. Tom has looked up too, his enormous forehead furrowed as his fingers go still over his phone. How awful of Karolina to interrupt him typing out another pathetic text to Siobhan, begging her to answer him while Shiv is off screwing a man who isn’t nearly as much of a loser, and she leans in further, not willing to let Tom or Kendall overhear a single word that leaves her mouth. 

“Yeah, right now. Please, Mrs. Kellman.” Karolina adopts the slightly whiny tone she used to use with Gerri, what feels like a century ago, when she was a desperate intern looking for her way up the ladder just as much as Gerri inside her, when she had dropped to her knees beneath Gerri’s desk and done whatever she was told, and though Gerri’s face remains impassive, Karolina can tell by the twitch of her lips that it’s having just as much of an affect on her as on Karolina herself. 

“Christ, Lina.” Gerri snaps, still keeping her voice low, and Karolina isn’t sure Gerri has even noticed she’s using the diminutive, knows she’d probably call Karolina Miss Novotney for weeks if she realized, that it’s too familiar for Gerri, too personal. It had taken Gerri nearly a year to call Karolina anything but Miss Novotney, and even now she says Karolina’s name with a hint of trepidation, as though she really would be preferring to call her nothing at all. “You really think those old tricks still work on me?”

Karolina is quiet for a moment, Gerri’s hand still gripping her knee tight enough to bruise, and she’s fairly certain these tricks still work. They’ve always worked, Karolina knows Gerri can’t resist her, and she leans over, clutching her stylus tight and debating licking a stripe up the side of Gerri’s neck. “Well, I was hoping-” 

“What the fuck is this whispering? Speak up.” Logan snaps, appearing in the doorway and bracing himself against it. Logan is far too fucking old to still run this company, in Karolina’s opinion he should hand the keys over to Shiv and retire so he can leave the last week or two of his life in peace, and Karolina leans back and tries to think of a suitable lie that won’t invite further questions. 

“Karolina has bad news, I’m afraid. About the biography.” Gerri doesn’t miss a beat, and Karolina nods, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. She’s been trying to get that biography shut down since she’s heard of it, it’s Karolina’s entire job to make sure none of the countless skeletons fall out of the Roy’s walk-in closet, and Gerri keeps talking, looking up at Logan and speaking to him with a very slight edge. Karolina stops listening immediately, she can never listen when it’s Gerri speaking, and she studies Gerri’s mouth as it moves, wanting desperately to cover it with her own. 

Gerri keeps talking, then she falls silent, looking over at Karolina with sharp eyes. Everyone is looking at her, Karolina realizes, Logan and Kendall and Gerri and even Tom, though Karolina knows Tom isn’t paying even a little bit of attention, and they’re expecting an answer to a question she didn’t hear. Karolina is good at giving answers to questions she doesn’t know, though, that’s what her entire career at Waystar is based off, and she glances over at Gerri before looking back up at Logan. 

“Leave it with us.” Karolina says, firmly, and she shuts the conversation down with those four words, leaning back slightly in her chair and tapping at her tablet again. It shuts everyone up, thank god, and Kendall pulls his headphones back over his ears, not even bothering to get his aging father back to a seat. If Karolina had a father like Logan Roy, she would do the same, and she types out a quick email as everyone’s attention wanes. Tom goes back to his pitiful text to Shiv, Logan sits down beside Marcia, and Gerri returns to her phone, waiting until no one is so much as facing them to lean in. 

“I’m not fucking you on a RoyCo private jet swamped with idiotic men. Get a grip.” Gerri snaps in her ear, and Karolina sighs, crossing one leg over the other and beginning to flick through the mountain of texts she has to deal with. Gerri removes her hand from Karolina’s bare knee, two red blotches left on her skin from Gerri’s fingertips, and dismisses Karolina as quickly and easily as she always does. Well, plan A failed. Maybe she’ll have some luck once they touch down in Hungary and the men go off to whip their pathetic dicks out in the middle of the woods. 

-

Karolina walks across the plush floor of the suite she’s been given, her feet practically sinking into the thick white carpeting as she crosses to the dresser and removes one earring. All the men have gone to shoot guns in the woods, leaving Karolina and Gerri behind, and she’s not angry about it, not even a little. She can watch some TV and drink wine in her underwear and go to sleep early, because she doesn’t have an invitation to dinner and she didn’t really want one, and so she’s put on her most comfortable lingerie, if such a thing exists, poured herself a brimming glass of red and is about to turn her phone off so she can doze off in front of the TV when the door swings wide open. 

Gerri stomps in, slamming the door shut behind her and crossing her arms over her chest as she plants her feet in the middle of the room and glares at Karolina. Her eyes are murderous behind her glasses, the top button of her blouse undone, and Karolina drops her other earring onto the surface of the dresser and turns to face Gerri, who looks as though she’s about to pop a blood vessel. “Do you want me to lose my fucking job?”

“What?” Karolina asks. As if Gerri could ever lose her job. Gerri is Siobhan’s godmother, she’s been offered Roman’s position at least three times, she’s one of the only people Logan trusts, and Karolina takes a sip of her wine, which is expensive and bitter and warms her from the inside out. Gerri sucks her teeth, looking Karolina up and down, and if Karolina knew Gerri was coming, she would have lost the robe and probably the black silk underwear beneath. 

“I didn’t want to spill about that stupid fucking book, but apparently, you’re too selfish to keep your dripping panties to yourself!” Gerri snaps, glaring at Karolina. Oh. It’s not as if Logan wasn’t aware of the biography, Karolina had informed him as soon as one of her contacts in publishing had called her about it, and Logan was also aware she was doing everything in her power to get it shut down. It’s not even Gerri’s job to deal with PR, she’s more of a general counsel than anything else, and Karolina isn’t quite sure what her goddamn problem is. 

“You didn’t have to mention it. I didn’t force your hand.” Karolina shrugs, taking another large sip of her wine before she steps towards Gerri. If Karolina was capable of forcing Gerri’s hand, she’d force it into her panties and not really anywhere else. Gerri scowls, deepening the lines in her face, and Karolina wets her bottom lip with her tongue, letting her eyes drift down Gerri’s body without a hint of shame. She’s always hated how Gerri dresses, how she covers her body with shirts and skirts and jackets that don’t fit quite right, and she wants to undo every button of Gerri’s blouse and shove it off her shoulders and kiss every bit of bare skin she can reach. 

“Oh, and what else could I have said? Don’t mind us, Karolina and I were just sharing shallow gossip like it’s a fucking teachers’ lounge. You think he really would have bought that?” Gerri advances, slowly, and Karolina steps back, letting Gerri back her up towards the wall. If Gerri had said something about a period, or that time of the month, Logan would have immediately left them to it, Tom and Kendall too, because they’re fragile man-children with egos as big as their dicks are small, but Karolina decides not to point that out. 

“I think you’re blowing this a bit out of proportion.” Karolina tilts her head slightly, looking Gerri up and down again, and Gerri is trembling with barely contained rage. It’s easy to rile Gerri up, Karolina has always been the only one who knows how, and she takes another step backwards, well aware of the wall a few inches behind her. “Or maybe you’re just cranky because I still know exactly how and when to push your buttons.”

“I’ll push your fucking buttons, how’s that?” Gerri snarls, absolutely murderous, and Karolina cocks a single eyebrow, pressing her legs together in an attempt to soothe the burning ache between. Her robe has started riding up, an inch or two higher and it’ll expose the fabric of her black silk panties, and Gerri knows it and Karolina knows it and the thought sends a shiver down Karolina’s spine. 

“Try me.” Karolina smirks, and Gerri’s entire face goes cold before she shoves Karolina up against the wall and kisses her so hard it hurts. Karolina kisses her back immediately, Gerri’s thumb digging into her cheek as she forces Karolina’s mouth open with her tongue, and for a moment they kiss before Karolina bites down on Gerri’s bottom lip hard enough to taste blood on her tongue. 

Gerri lets her go and slaps her across the face, putting just enough force behind it to make Karolina grin, and Karolina flexes her jaw, grinning at Gerri even as blood blooms on Gerri’s mouth. Karolina wants to grab her by the collar of her blouse, pull her into another desperate kiss, but she settles for wiping her mouth on the back of her hand and eyeing Gerri again. “So, when is this ‘pushing my buttons’ thing gonna start? Seems like I’m still in control here.”

“Really? You think you’re in control?” Gerri leans in, presses closer, tongue flicking out to catch the drop of blood on her bottom lip, and Karolina tilts her face up just slightly. In heels, Gerri is taller, especially when Karolina is barefoot, and Karolina knows that neither of them are in control, neither of them have ever fully been in control and neither of them ever will, and Gerri moves closer still, so close they’re almost kissing, the heat of Gerri’s breath dancing across Karolina’s mouth. 

“I’m not sure. Maybe you’ve lost your touch.” Karolina draws out the words, grinning at Gerri, and watches as Gerri’s eyes go ice-cold and her mouth presses into a thin line. She tears open Karolina’s robe, nearly ripping the silk, and scoffs when she sees the black lingerie beneath, huffing a laugh through her nose as she presses her hand between Karolina’s legs and cups her in one firm hand. Karolina stiffens, very conscious of the wet spot in her panties, and Gerri touches her like she owns her, like no one will ever get to touch Karolina besides her. 

“Oh, you’re the one in control, are you?” Gerri scrapes her thumb along Karolina’s clit over her panties, pressing the side of her nail into Karolina’s flesh so hard Karolina swallows a whimper, and she switches to the pad of her thumb, rubbing up and down slowly and eliciting a pathetic whine from Karolina’s lips. Gerri might be right. No one else can touch Karolina like this, she’s never let anyone else try, Gerri knows her body inside and out in a way no one else ever will. 

Gerri pulls her thumb back, forcing Karolina to suppress another miserable noise, and hooks her index finger in the waistband of Karolina’s panties, flicking the tiny black bow just beneath her navel before pulling the elastic back and snapping the waist against Karolina’s stomach hard enough to sting. “Get these off.” 

Karolina wriggles out of her panties, forcing herself not to blush at the visible wet spot, and as soon as they’re off Gerri snatches them, running her fingers over the fabric pressed to Karolina’s cunt not a moment ago before tucking them into the pocket of her trousers and looking Karolina up and down again. Karolina grew out of being ashamed of her body in front of Gerri two decades ago, she’s never been particularly ashamed of it to begin with, and Gerri just jerks her chin towards the enormous bed in the middle of the room. 

“Bed. Now.” Gerri orders, stern as ever, and Karolina brushes past her, well aware of Gerri’s gaze on the curve of her ass beneath the robe as she crawls onto the bed and settles on her back, propped on her elbows while Gerri begins to undo her own shirt. Thank the lord. Karolina watches, bottom lip caught between her teeth, eyes roving across every inch of Gerri’s skin that’s revealed by the fabric of her blouse sliding off her torso. 

Gerri is wearing a plain white bra beneath, exactly the kind she usually wears, and Karolina nearly starts drooling at the sight. Her robe is slipping off her shoulders, exposing the straps of her own bra, and Gerri drops her blouse on the floor, standing in front of the bed in her bra as if she’s inviting Karolina to drink her fill. Karolina does, her feet dangling off the edge of the bed as she looks at Gerri, and Gerri looks her up and down one more time before lifting a single flawless eyebrow. 

“Are you shy all of a sudden?” Gerri asks, and Karolina frowns. She isn’t sure what Gerri is on about until there are a set of hands on her knees and her legs are wrenched open, baring her cunt to Gerri’s gaze. Cool air hits her slick skin and Karolina shivers, watching Gerri carefully as she leans down and examines Karolina’s cunt with the sharp gaze that makes most people weak at the knees. 

Karolina gasps when Gerri spits, saliva hitting her clit and making her toes curl, and Karolina takes a sharp breath as the spit runs down her cunt, dripping onto the bedsheets so slowly it aches. Gerri watches, impassive as ever, her face not betraying a single emotion as her spit drips down Karolina’s cunt, and she only speaks when Karolina can feel the spit puddle beneath her spread legs on the comforter. “It’s pathetic how easy it is to unravel you.” 

“You’re the only one who’d know.” Karolina answers, and Gerri scoffs again, rubbing two fingers along the seam of Karolina’s cunt. She wets her fingers on the spit and the arousal already present, spreading it around, and Karolina’s hips jerk up involuntarily when Gerri’s fingertips brush her clit. Gerri keeps her pinned to the bed with a single hand spread across her stomach, fingers pressing into Karolina’s flesh, and she flashes Karolina half a smirk that has nothing but ownership behind it. 

“That’s why you’re so desperate for me to fuck you.” Gerri parts the curls between Karolina’s legs with her fingers and examines her, almost clinically; if anyone else looked at Karolina like this, she’d hit them and kick them out and take a shower to scrub away the memory of their gaze, but Gerri has always looked at her like this and Karolina wouldn’t want it any other way. “Because I’m the only one who knows how, is that right?”

“I can’t come unless it’s with you. You’ve ruined me for anyone else.” Karolina says, and Gerri glances up from between her thighs to meet her gaze. Gerri’s pupils are blown and she looks Karolina up and down from behind her glasses, not as a person but as something to be eaten alive, something to be devoured, to be feasted on, and Karolina prays that Gerri swallows her up and leaves nothing behind. She kneels between Karolina’s spread legs, perched on the edge of the bed, and Karolina shifts backwards, gives Gerri enough room to get comfortable. Gerri isn’t as young as she used to be, and explaining to any of the Roys that Gerri had broken a hip trying to have sex with Karolina is not something that needs to be done. 

Gerri doesn’t break eye contact as she slides her middle finger into Karolina, long and slender and utterly familiar, and Karolina’s lips part as she lets out a soft moan. Gerri has done this a thousand times, a million times, and every time feels like the first, Gerri’s practiced finger pressing into her all the way up to the knuckle and curling to hit some deep, foreign spot that no one else has ever reached. 

“You look like a whore.” Gerri doesn’t move, voice cold, and Karolina props her legs open wider, spreading herself for Gerri’s hand with both eyebrows lifted. Gerri had said the same thing twenty years ago, the first time she’d had Karolina bent over her desk, skirt hiked up past her hips and cunt dripping down her leg, and it had never stopped giving Karolina rather unfortunate butterflies. 

“Isn’t that how you like me?” Karolina rolls her hips against Gerri’s hand, well aware she’s leaking all over Gerri’s palm, and Gerri laughs with no kindness. She looks at Karolina over her glasses, up and down again, over the tidy dark curls between Karolina’s thighs and the dip of her navel, very purposely letting her gaze skim directly over Karolina’s tits, and Karolina shifts further onto Gerri’s finger and balls the comforter in her fists. 

“Doesn’t really matter, since that’s all you are.” Gerri shrugs, pressing the pad of her finger into that spot inside Karolina that makes her legs shake, and Karolina hisses through her teeth, Gerri’s finger unyielding and firm and harsh, pushing so hard it hurts deep in Karolina’s stomach. “A needy little whore, begging me to fuck you in public like a hormonal high schooler.” 

“Just for you, though.” Karolina wriggles, desperate for Gerri to do something besides this, and Gerri just looks at her, curling her finger harder without even a shred of mercy. A red flush has spread over her chest above her bra, the same one she always has when she’s turned on, and Karolina bites back a grin so Gerri doesn’t smack her for it. She is beautiful, she’s always been beautiful, and age has done nothing but make her hotter. 

“Yeah, I bet. Loyal like a fucking dog, that’s you.” Gerri rolls her eyes and Karolina smirks, earning half a sneer from Gerri as she pulls her finger from Karolina and adds a second as she slams back into her. Karolina keens, a breathy noise escaping her mouth, and Gerri spits on her again, spreading it across her clit with the pad of her thumb. Karolina is wet enough, Gerri didn’t need to spit, but Karolina isn’t going to complain. 

Karolina knows she sounds like a whore, like a pathetic little slut, moaning and whimpering and sighing, but Gerri is the only person who’s ever been able to draw these sounds from Karolina’s lips, no one else is capable of even coming close to fucking her like Gerri does, and Karolina’s hips buck upwards as Gerri spreads her fingers wide inside Karolina’s cunt. Gerri uses her free hand to grab her hip, digging her thumb into Karolina’s hipbone and pinning her to the bed, and Karolina clenches around Gerri’s fingers desperately at the feeling of Gerri’s nails slicing into her skin. 

It takes so little to get Karolina off with Gerri, she could come just looking at Gerri, and she arches her back, Gerri’s fingers picking up speed as an orgasm builds low in her stomach. The sounds filling the room are obscene, filthy, so vile they’re almost pornographic, and Gerri curls her fingers, shoving Karolina closer to the edge with every thrust of her hand. Karolina inhales sharply, so close to coming it almost hurts, and then Gerri pulls her fingers out and wipes them on the inside of Karolina’s thigh. 

Karolina nearly sobs at the loss, still panting hard, and Gerri gets off the bed, retrieving her shirt from the floor and slipping it on. Her fingers are still shiny and Karolina’s panties are still in her pocket and Karolina pushes herself up, trying to catch her breath as she stares at Gerri. If not for the flush on her chest, you’d have no idea she was just fucking Karolina hard, her hair hasn’t so much as slipped out of place, and Karolina frowns at her as she struggles to breathe. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Karolina asks once she can form words, cunt still aching from the lack of relief, and Gerri begins buttoning her shirt. She doesn’t even do her shirt up crooked, slipping each button into its proper hole and not looking at Karolina, and only when she’s done her blouse up all the way to her throat, she glances up with both brows lifted high and a blank expression on the rest of her face. 

“What, you think you deserve to get off after that little stunt you pulled?” Gerri dusts her shirt off, her voice cold, and Karolina crawls off the bed, choosing to ignore the damp spot she’s left on the bed. Her cunt hurts and her stomach hurts and she scowls, watching Gerri walk over to the dresser and take a sip of Karolina’s wine. She leaves lipstick on the glass, a flawless nude print, and she takes another long sip before setting the glass back down and running her tongue over her bottom lip. 

Karolina tugs her robe tight around herself, feeling remarkably naked despite the fact that she’s partly dressed. She wants to yank her underwear out of Gerri’s pocket and pull it back on, just to spite Gerri, but she won’t, because Gerri would just tear her panties right off again and slap her across the face for it. “Gerri, come on-” 

“You can get yourself off, I don’t care.” Gerri waves a hand idly, turning to herself in the mirror and smoothing the collar of her shirt down. Karolina won’t, and Gerri knows it. Karolina never bothers getting herself off, it’s not the same without Gerri and her own hand has never felt as good, and she bites down hard on the inside of her cheek. “We both know it won’t satisfy you like I could have if you were capable of behaving yourself in public.”

“Please.” Karolina says quietly, desperately, and Gerri tucks a piece of hair behind her ear and glances at Karolina in the mirror. Gerri huffs, running her fingernail beneath her lips to tidy up her lipstick, and she makes Karolina feel about two feet tall. Karolina looks two feet tall, standing behind Gerri in nothing but her robe, feet bare, face clean of makeup and hair shaken out, vulnerable and small and nothing compared to Gerri. 

“Begging won’t help you either.” Gerri snaps, tracing the rim of the wine glass, and Karolina ties her robe tight around her waist and pushes some hair out of her face. Gerri is the only person who can make her feel useless, the only person who can ever make her feel this small, and Karolina hates it so much. She’s Karolina Novotney. She’s the head of PR for Waystar RoyCo, she makes seven million dollars a year, she’s a goddamn professional, and Gerri Kellman should not make her feel like this. No one should make her feel like this! No one!

“It used to.” Karolina looks at her in the mirror, and Gerri looks back, and keeps her mouth closed. She fixes herself up, as if she ever needs fixing, as if she’s ever once needed fixing, and Karolina watches her in silence. Gerri has to go back and have dinner with the Roy men and try not to vomit at the amount of testosterone stinking up the room, she has to play nice and talk and pretend she wants to be there, and Karolina gets to send a few emails and finish her wine and go to bed early. Gerri might make three times her salary and be Siobhan’s godmother, but Karolina knows she has the better end of the deal by a long shot. Karolina scrapes at her cuticles, sighing, and then looks back up at Gerri. “So you’re just gonna leave?” 

“Mhm.” Gerri tucks her shirt back into her pants and walks over to the door, looking for all the world like she and Karolina had just had a quick meeting before dinner. Karolina looks freshly fucked, cheeks flushed and hair messy, her panties in Gerri’s pocket, and here Gerri is, just as flawless as ever. Karolina follows Gerri to the door, admiring her ass in her pants, and pauses in front of the door, wanting nothing more than to grab Gerri’s wrist and yank her into a kiss and never let her go. 

“Kiss goodbye?” Karolina asks, raising her eyebrows, and Gerri pulls the door open and turns back to Karolina. They look at each other for a moment, it could be seconds or years, Gerri’s cold blue eyes searching Karolina’s face, and then Gerri steps out of Karolina’s hotel room and slams the door behind her so hard Karolina feels it in her bones. 

Miserable and exhausted and aching, Karolina locks the door behind Gerri and walks back over to the dresser, tasting Gerri’s lipstick on the rim of the glass as she tips her head back and finishes the wine left over. Karolina drains the glass dry and holds it loose in her fingers, examining the faint red stain before she chucks it across the room as hard as she can and watches it shatter into a thousand pieces against the opposite wall, glass tinkling as it lands in the carpet and leaves a scratch on the elegant wallpaper. Karolina should care. She wants to care.

She doesn’t. 

-

Karolina rests her elbows on her kitchen island, sending off a final text to Gerri before putting her phone down and propping her chin in her hands. Two fucking days back from Hungary and an employee blasts his own brains out at his desk, paints his cubicle wall with blood and writes a note about how awful working for ATN is before he does it. Karolina had that note torn to shreds and burnt, sent every major news outlet a comment about how the employee had been deeply mentally ill and how deeply saddened the Roys were by his suicide, paid the man’s wife a tidy sum to keep her quiet, and finally gotten home to her empty apartment only to be swamped with emails. 

It’s not as though Karolina doesn’t have sympathy for him. She doesn’t work for ATN specifically, Karolina works for Waystar and the Roys and doesn’t get involved in the separate companies that make up Waystar, but she’s spent half her career covering up for borderline pedophilic reporters and news anchors who try to grope their interns, and she knows how toxic the work culture is and can be. The only sex scandal at Waystar she hasn’t been responsible for is her own, and that’s because she encouraged Gerri’s advances until Gerri just snapped and bent her over a desk. 

She misses Gerri, which is stupid, because she saw Gerri a few hours ago. Karolina taps her fingers on the granite counter, watching her phone as if Gerri is going to sense her desperation and call her up, and huffs a sigh to herself when Gerri doesn’t read her mind. Gerri lives no more than twenty blocks from Karolina, in a sprawling penthouse she’s owned since the 80s and hasn’t updated since, and Karolina spends more time than she’d care to admit thinking about selling her own apartment and showing up at Gerri’s with a truck full of boxes and a smile. She’s always been one to ask for forgiveness rather than permission, but the idea of Gerri slamming the door in her face is enough to keep her from doing anything stupid. 

Karolina has lived alone for most of her life, since she was nineteen years old, and she’s never quite grown accustomed to it. She doesn’t date, not really, her options as a forty-something lesbian married to her job above everything and in a long-term on and off relationship with her boss are basically zero, and every woman she’s ever even attempted to date hasn’t come close to Gerri. No one ever can and no one ever will. Karolina sighs again, picks her phone back up, and types out about six messages before she picks one that doesn’t make her sound like Tom wheedling Shiv into coming home. 

Can I see you? 

For a while, Karolina’s thumb hovers above the send button, her cuticles scraped bloody, and she takes a deep breath before sending the message and waiting. Three dots pop up on her screen immediately, disappear, reappear, and cycle through that a few more times before Gerri apparently settles on an answer. Karolina waits, drumming her nails on the counter, worrying a hole in her bottom lip, and when Gerri finally texts her back, a sigh of relief escapes Karolina’s mouth. 

Yes.

Gerri opens the door as soon as Karolina’s knuckles hit the wood, as if she’s been waiting for the knock, and Karolina forces herself not to smile. She could have walked straight in, Karolina has a key for ‘emergencies’ such as Gerri needing a face to sit on or some tits to grope, but she rarely uses that key and she isn’t using it now. Gerri lets her in without a word, closing and bolting the door behind her, and they stand in Gerri’s front hallway for longer than either of them would care to admit, examining each other in a silence that feels endless. 

A buzzing interrupts them both, Gerri’s phone ringing on the table, and Karolina glances over at the screen. Romulus Roy (Roman). The distinction shouldn’t be funny to Karolina and she isn’t sure exactly why it makes her want to laugh, but who else in this entire fucking world is named Romulus Roy? Gerri picks up her phone, examines the screen for a moment, and then declines the call, setting her phone face-down on the table. She looks back up at Karolina, blue eyes gleaming, and takes Karolina’s face in both hands and pulls her into a kiss. 

It’s not insistent, not desperate, just a kiss, and Karolina kisses her back, threading her fingers into Gerri’s soft blonde hair and flicking her tongue out along Gerri’s bottom lip. They kiss for a long time, backing slowly into the living room, and Gerri holds Karolina’s hips tight in her grasp and pulls her down onto the couch. Karolina kisses her for a moment more, licking at the inside of Gerri’s mouth, and then she breaks away to study Gerri’s face. 

Karolina studies Gerri close for a moment, swallowing hard as Gerri tucks a dark strand of hair behind Karolina’s ear and drags her fingertips down the line of Karolina’s jaw. Her fingers are warm and steady and gentle and Gerri draws her hand back, examining Karolina’s face with her sharp eyes. They sit for a moment, the only sound the TV playing faintly, and then Karolina takes a deep breath and forces herself to speak. “Say you’re sorry.”

“For what?” Gerri frowns, hands folded in her lap, and Karolina takes Gerri’s hand in both of her own, brushing her fingertips over Gerri’s knuckles and pressing their palms together. Often Karolina thinks that Gerri’s hand was meant to hold hers, they fit perfectly together, palms and fingers and knuckles, every time their hands touch it feels like a puzzle piece sliding into place, and Gerri knows it too. It scares Gerri. Scares Karolina too, but she’d found it easier to get over than Gerri has. 

“For leaving me in that room.” Karolina watches Gerri untangle their fingers and doesn’t comment, just puts her hands back in her lap and looks back up into Gerri’s eyes. She hasn’t been alone with Gerri since Hungary, Gerri hasn’t allowed it, and Karolina misses her. She won’t admit to missing her, but she does, and she shouldn’t. Karolina looks at her again, gentler, and she can see Gerri’s face soften almost imperceptibly. No one else would notice, if they saw Gerri, but Karolina notices. She always does. “Say it.”

“No.” Gerri says, and Karolina refuses to sigh. She looks at Gerri instead, looks at her the same way she did twenty years ago, when she was an intern and Gerri was her boss and she wanted to get fucked on Gerri’s desk. She isn’t sure if she still works, but she gives Gerri her very best doe eyes as she reaches out and takes Gerri’s glasses off her face carefully. Gerri lets her, lets Karolina put her glasses on the table and press her fingertips to Gerri’s collarbones and drag them up the long line of Gerri’s throat. 

Karolina has all of Gerri’s most sensitive spots memorized and she strokes the underside of her jaw, Gerri’s pulse throbbing beneath Karolina’s fingers as she traces up the shell of Gerri’s ear and onto her cheekbone. She memorized Gerri’s body years ago, knows that biting her earlobe will make her shiver and skimming fingers down her spine will make her wet, she knows Gerri’s body better than she knows her own and she wouldn’t have it any other way. Gerri’s face softens at the touch and Karolina bats her eyes once more, mostly for good measure, and Gerri presses her lips together so she doesn’t smile. 

“Fine. I’m sorry.” Gerri says, sounding like she’d rather do anything but apologize, and Karolina shifts closer, their knees pressed together. She cups Gerri’s face in her hand, cradles her cheek, and Gerri leans into the touch so slightly Karolina isn’t even sure Gerri knows she’s doing it. Her skin is soft and warm, so delicate Karolina wonders if she’ll tear to shreds beneath Karolina’s fingers, and Karolina leans forwards and presses the slightest of kisses to her mouth and smiles. 

“Again.” Karolina orders, their noses almost touching, and Gerri sighs. Her breath smells of gin and lemon and a hint of salt and she tries to kiss Karolina again, brows furrowing when Karolina leans back just enough to keep her lips away from Gerri’s. Gerri frowns and Karolina shakes her head, palms braced on Gerri’s knees and eyes searching Gerri’s own. 

“I’m sorry, Lina.” Gerri says finally, and Karolina kisses her a bit longer this time. She doesn’t let Gerri open her mouth, doesn’t do anything besides brush her sealed lips against Gerri’s and lean back again, and Gerri scowls deep. The lines in her face deepen when she frowns, the beautiful lines that Karolina has committed to memory and discourages Gerri from erasing with needles or plastic or restylane, and Karolina resists the urge to trace them with her fingertips. 

“Good. And?”

“And what?” 

Karolina kisses the corner of Gerri’s mouth gently, the left side and then the right, then the tip of her nose, and Gerri looks like she wants to roll her eyes. She doesn’t, and Karolina kisses the bridge of her nose this time, each of her eyelids, the tops of her cheekbones and her lips again, and Gerri shudders beneath Karolina’s mouth. “Say you’ll make it up to me.”

“I was already going to do that.” Gerri says, as if it would be obvious, and Karolina runs her fingers over the collar of Gerri’s blouse, smoothing it carefully and tugging the top button out of the hole. Gerri inhales sharply, throat bobbing under Karolina’s fingertips, and Karolina brushes a thumb over her pulse slowly. Karolina kisses just below her jaw, breathing in Gerri’s perfume and soap and laundry detergent, and Gerri shudders again, her knuckles going white on the edge of the couch. 

“I need to hear you say it.” Karolina murmurs against Gerri’s throat, kissing the crook of her neck slowly, and Gerri doesn’t say a word, swallowing hard as Karolina licks a bruise onto her delicate skin. Gerri will be angry about it tomorrow, will wear a scarf or or a turtleneck or paint concealer onto her neck, complain because she’s ‘not in fucking high school, Lina’, and Karolina will ignore her and give her another hickey on her tits instead. 

“I’m going to make it up to you.” Gerri slips her hand into Karolina’s hair and pulls her head back, tipping her face up so they’re eye to eye. Her scalp stings and Karolina smiles, biting down on her bottom lip and lifting her eyebrows at Gerri. Gerri tugs a bit harder at her hair, just enough to feel good, and Karolina grins. Gerri thinks a lot of things about being in control, about how she’s the boss of Karolina, about how she makes the rules, but Karolina knows damn well she’s had Gerri wrapped around her finger for a very long time. 

“Well, you better get on with it, then, don’t you think?” Karolina smirks, and Gerri yanks her into another kiss. She kisses Karolina hard, desperate, her tongue stroking the roof of Karolina’s mouth as she presses Karolina into the couch, laying her down and fitting her hand between them. She undoes Karolina’s pants, fumbling with the zipper and pulling them down her thighs, and Karolina grins up at her as Gerri yanks her pants all the way off and tosses them to the carpeted floor. 

Gerri breaks their kiss, pulling away from Karolina just enough to get her sweater off over her head, and Karolina’s breath hitches when Gerri runs her hand over the sensitive skin of her stomach. She’s used to being mostly or entirely naked while Gerri is fully clothed, she can count on one hand the number of times she’s seen Gerri completely undressed, but it feels wrong today, and she lets Gerri kiss her for another moment before lightly pushing her away. 

“I want to see you, too. Please.” Karolina says softly, and Gerri stops dead. She doesn’t do anything, just looks down at Karolina, and Karolina takes that as agreement and begins to unbutton Gerri’s blouse. Gerri lets her, doesn’t smack Karolina’s hands away or pin them above her head or force them off, she just keeps her eyes focused on somewhere above Karolina’s head as Karolina undoes the last button and kisses the hollow of Gerri’s throat. She wriggles out of her shirt, the fabric of her simple white bra an unimaginable comfort, and Karolina kisses her collarbone again and scrapes her teeth along Gerri’s skin. 

“I missed you.” Gerri whispers, and Karolina detaches her mouth from Gerri’s neck and looks at her. Gerri looks back. Her eyes are wide and open, more vulnerable than Karolina has ever seen them, and if Karolina didn’t have an iron grip on her emotions at all times she’d probably burst into tears. Thankfully, two decades working for the Roys has taught her how to stomp every single feeling down and never let it out, and so she just raises an eyebrow and swallows down a lump in her throat. 

“Prove it. Show me how much.” Karolina leans back on the couch, propping herself on her elbows, and Gerri grins. She tugs Karolina’s panties down her legs, leaving them hooked around one of Karolina’s ankles as she kisses down Karolina’s chest and stomach. Her mouth is warm and soft and she leaves a trail of kisses around Karolina’s navel, circling her belly button and then dipping lower, all the way down to Karolina’s knee. 

She’s gentle, gentler than she’s been in a very long time, and Karolina combs her fingers through Gerri’s hair, pushing it off her face with a smile she can’t be bothered to hide. Gerri kisses the inside of Karolina’s knee, pressing a row of soft kisses along her skin, and she sinks her teeth about halfway up Karolina’s thigh, biting down lightly before flicking her tongue over the dents in Karolina’s skin. Karolina hopes she leaves a bruise, hopes she’ll wake up tomorrow with a perfect print of Gerri’s teeth on the inside of her thigh, and she pushes herself up and reaches around to the clasp of her bra. 

Gerri watches as Karolina tugs her bra off, sitting between Karolina’s legs with one lifted over her shoulder and the other draped lazily across the cushions of the couch, and Karolina forces herself not to press a hand over her chest when she gets her bra onto the floor. She can’t remember the last time she’s been properly naked in front of someone, Gerri especially, she’s never been a huge fan of how her body has changed as she’s left her twenties behind, but Gerri stares at her, pupils threatening to swallow up the blue of her eyes as she gazes at Karolina’s body. 

It occurs to Karolina that she’s the same age now as Gerri was when they met, all those years ago, and the thought is a strange one. Gerri was forty-three when Karolina met her the first time, confident and assured and drop-dead gorgeous, and Karolina was twenty-four, just out of college, barely any more than an intern for Waystar. Here she is now, forty-three herself, and she wonders what her twenty-whatever self would have to say about her now, legs spread wide for Gerri as they have been for the last two decades. 

“You know,” Gerri leaves another kiss on Karolina’s thigh, nosing at her sensitive skin, and she’s purposely avoiding the damp curls between Karolina’s leg, just to work her up. It would irritate Karolina more if she wasn’t used to it, and so she just savours the feeling of Gerri’s warm breath drifting up towards her cunt and peers down at her. “A long time ago I used to look at you and think to myself, she can’t possibly get any more beautiful.” 

“Really?” Gerri had never expressed that to her, but Gerri had never expressed anything to her, Gerri doesn’t talk about anything or use her words at all, Karolina has spent a very long time guessing every single feeling Gerri’s ever had, and she looks down at Gerri with half a smile. She can remember Gerri telling her she was sexy, Gerri telling her she couldn’t possibly expect to walk around with those tits or that ass and be left alone, Gerri sliding a hand beneath her skirt to check for panties and grin when she found none, but beautiful? Gerri has never once called her beautiful. 

“Yeah. I guess I was wrong.” Gerri shrugs, kissing the crease where Karolina’s thigh meets her hips, and Karolina would blush if she wasn’t a grown woman. She’s never thought of herself as beautiful, really, she knows that she has a pleasant enough face and nice hair and while her body isn’t as young as it once was, she isn’t ugly. But Gerri has never been wrong, and Karolina trusts Gerri, and she combs her fingers through Gerri’s hair again and sighs when Gerri kisses the jutting bone of her hip. 

“I think we were both wrong about a lot of things back then.” Karolina says, and Gerri doesn’t look like she knows exactly how to answer. Fair enough. Gerri leans up and kisses her instead, hard and deep, and that’s enough of a response for Karolina. Karolina kisses her back, sighing into Gerri’s mouth when Gerri’s thigh ends up between her own, and Gerri just kisses her harder, letting Karolina grind her hips against Gerri’s bare thigh for a tiny bit of relief. Her clit presses into Gerri’s thigh, earning another sigh, and Gerri nips at her bottom lip and pushes her thigh further into Karolina’s cunt. 

Karolina whines against her mouth at the contact, wrapping the leg that isn’t over Gerri’s shoulder around Gerri’s waist, and she’s probably leaving a slick patch on Gerri’s thigh, probably making a filthy mess on her leg. If she was young again, if they were both young again, Gerri would grab her by the hair and force her to clean up after herself, would make Karolina lick her skin clean and then bend her over the coffee table and spank her for it, but they aren’t young anymore, and so Gerri just breaks away from their kiss and brings her fingers to Karolina’s mouth. 

Gerri’s fingers are long and strong and she presses them past Karolina’s lips, slides them onto Karolina’s tongue and doesn’t drop eye contact, gazing at Karolina as she sucks Gerri’s fingers, and Karolina laps at her fingertips and sucks hard. Gerri pushes her fingers further into Karolina’s mouth and Karolina lets her, her nails pressing at the back of Karolina’s throat, and it would make Karolina gag if Gerri hadn’t trained that out of her half a lifetime ago. She sucks just long enough to get Gerri’s fingers slick and then Gerri pulls her fingers out, a line of spit connecting her fingertips to Karolina’s parted lips. 

Spit drips down her chin and Gerri kisses it away, cleaning Karolina’s face before she shifts her leg back to examine the wet spot Karolina’s left on the bare skin of her thigh. Karolina almost whimpers at the loss, hips chasing nothing, and then Gerri replaces her thigh with her hand and traces her clit with one slick finger. She rubs Karolina’s cunt slowly, parting the fine dark curls and stroking up to her clit, and Karolina bites down on the back of her hand so she doesn’t make a ridiculously obscene noise before Gerri is even inside her. 

Gerri catches her eye and holds her gaze as she presses a single finger into Karolina, not breaking eye contact for a single second as she slides into her to the knuckle. Karolina moans again, digging her teeth into her hand so she isn’t too pathetic, and Gerri starts to fuck her slow and steady and gentle. If Karolina bites down any harder on her hand she’s going to start bleeding and Gerri takes her hand, pulling it softly away from her mouth and lacing their fingers together tight. She rubs her thumb over the dents Karolina has left in her own hand, soothing, and Karolina looks at her and wonders if it would be inappropriate to burst into tears. 

Karolina rolls her hips against Gerri’s hand, forcing herself not to let her eyes squeeze shut. She keeps her eyes on Gerri and Gerri keeps her eyes on her and they look at each other, silent, hands twined together as Gerri fucks her. Gerri always knows exactly how to touch her, how to draw breathy sounds from her lips and get her hips bucking upwards desperately, and Karolina has been in love with Gerri since the day she met her and she’s never stopped and she never will. Gerri adds a second finger, stretching her just so, and Karolina bites down hard on the inside of her mouth. 

“Are you okay?” Gerri asks, and Karolina focuses back on her eyes. Gerri must have noticed a shift in her face, something changing, and Karolina takes Gerri’s face in her hand and draws her down into a kiss. She kisses Gerri gently, stroking her cheek, and Gerri kisses her back, fingers not stilling even as Karolina releases her with a nod. Karolina has kissed Gerri a million times, more times than she could ever count, wet kisses and dry kisses, soft kisses and hard kisses, Gerri is an excellent kisser and Karolina knows she herself is very good at it, but Gerri never kisses her with this kind of intimacy. They aren’t intimate. That’s their whole thing, but here they are, tangled in each other, a declaration of love begging to spill from Karolina’s lips. 

“Yes.” Karolina says instead, sliding her fingers into Gerri’s hair, and she can’t. Gerri would laugh in her face if the word love so much as popped into her head, she wouldn’t say it back, even if she felt the same way. She would look at Karolina with the eyes she usually reserves for Roman, and Karolina will not be looked at like she’s Roman fucking Roy. “I’m fine. Don’t stop.” 

Gerri leans down, breaking their eye contact for the first time, and presses a kiss to the side of Karolina’s neck, probably giving her a hickey out of nothing but spite. Her fingers curl upwards, pressing hard on the spot only Gerri has ever managed to reach, and Karolina forgets about love and intimacy and time and everything as she moans, hips bucking upwards desperately into Gerri’s hand. Gerri pins her down, her own hips keeping Karolina pressed against the couch, and Karolina tries not to burst into tears. 

She runs her fingers through Gerri’s hair instead, scraping her nails lightly over the back of Gerri’s neck, and Gerri doesn’t acknowledge her touch, just keeps fucking her and kissing her neck and pinning her to the couch. Karolina strokes her hair slowly, pressing a kiss to Gerri’s bare shoulder so lightly she can feel Gerri shiver against her, and she keeps her face in Gerri’s shoulder and shuts her eyes. 

_I love you._ Karolina would say it every single day if she could, scream it and sob it and sing it, but she settles for murmuring it against Gerri’s skin so quietly she knows Gerri didn’t hear. She prays. Gerri’s shoulders tense beneath her for a moment and Karolina’s heart leaps into her throat, she really doesn’t want to have this conversation with Gerri right now, but Gerri is silent and so she probably didn’t hear Karolina at all. Thank god. 

Twenty years ago, Karolina would have wept about it. Fuck, twenty minutes ago Karolina would have wept about it. She can feel tears prickle at her eyes, hot and sharp, and she focuses on Gerri’s fingers, gaining speed inside her as Gerri’s mouth works quicker at her neck, and Karolina digs her nails into Gerri’s back with the hand Gerri isn’t holding and feels her stomach clench, knows she’s already close. Gerri could make her come in minutes, in seconds if she really wanted to, and they both know it. 

Karolina is silent when she comes, for the first time probably ever, and she makes a miserable noise into Gerri’s neck as her back arches and she clenches around Gerri’s fingers. Gerri fucks her through it, the same way she always does, stroking slowly at Karolina’s insides, and Karolina keeps silent, pain and pleasure filling her up and consuming her and blending together until she can’t tell the difference between them anymore. That’s how Gerri always makes her feel, good and bad, happy and miserable, she mixes them up and gives them to Karolina and expects her to cope. 

Gerri pulls her fingers out of Karolina and doesn’t bother wiping them off, both of them breathing shallowly as they lie there in silence. Karolina is an expert at not feeling anything, she’s spent her whole life numbing herself to emotion, and then Gerri runs a hand over her hair and tears start trickling down Karolina’s cheeks. She presses her face deeper into Gerri’s neck, praying Gerri doesn’t notice she’s crying, and Gerri doesn’t say a word, just strokes her hair again, so gently it makes Karolina want to burst into sobs. 

Karolina does her very best not to show Gerri she’s crying, keeping her breathing steady and her body still, but Gerri knows her better than she knows herself and she leans back, looking at Karolina with blank eyes. Karolina wants to scream. All she wants, all she’s ever wanted, is Gerri to answer her, to tell her whether she’s wasted twenty years of her life or not, and she knows that Gerri won’t. She knows it, and Gerri lifts a hand to her face, brushes tears from her cheeks with her thumb, and Karolina wishes she had just ignored it. She wishes Gerri would just tell her. 

“I’m sorry.” Gerri whispers, and Karolina shoves her away. She isn’t sure she’s ever pushed Gerri away before, and Gerri looks like Karolina just spat in her face, eyes widening and eyebrows lifting. Karolina practically flings herself off the couch, her panties still hooked around one ankle, and vanishes into Gerri’s bathroom, slamming the door behind her and locking it and presses her back to the wall, ignoring the cold tile as tears stream down her face. 

God, she’s fucking pathetic. Karolina stares at herself in the mirror, at the wretched woman staring back at her, naked and sobbing with bruises beginning to form on her neck, her hair a mess and her lips puffy and her cheeks pink. She feels awful and small and humiliated, shoulders hunched and eyes red, and she hates this. She shouldn’t be sobbing in a bathroom because Gerri doesn’t love her. She knows Gerri doesn’t love her, she’s known for years Gerri doesn’t love her, and she knows that Gerri would never actually tell her if she did, but it still hurts, deep in her chest, like her heart is withering away with each painful reminder. 

One of Gerri’s sweaters is draped over the towel rack, grey and thick, and Karolina pulls it over her head carefully and breathes in the smell of laundry detergent and perfume and a hint of cigarette smoke. She bursts into tears again. It hurts and she hates being vulnerable and she hates being exposed and she hates how Gerri makes her feel, like she’s been flayed alive and all of her delicate insides have been put on display, and she tugs the sweater down over her stomach and pulls her panties back up her legs. 

The last time Karolina had sobbed in a bathroom over Gerri, it had been 1999. Karolina had been twenty-six, practically a child, and Gerri had broken up with her after sex and then slept with her again the next day and never tried to dump her again. Karolina looks at herself in the mirror and for a moment she can see that girl again, long dark hair and eyes softer than silk and a face untouched by age, fuller lips and a gentler smile and much smoother skin. Karolina hasn’t been that girl for a very long time, but the pain of Gerri is just as raw as it was all those years ago. 

If only that girl could see her now. Would she think Karolina stupid, for still sobbing over Gerri, for still allowing Gerri to treat her this way? Karolina is stupid. She hates that she lets Gerri treat her like this, stringing her along for twenty years without even hinting at any sort of commitment, hates that no matter how often she promises herself she’ll stop seeing Gerri, she breaks it as soon as she sees Gerri’s glasses or her pursed lips or her long hands. If the Karolina of twenty years ago could see her now, she’d call herself an idiot and shake her by the shoulders, but all Karolina can manage right now is a weak hiccup and some cold water on her face. 

Karolina isn’t sure how long she’s been in the bathroom, but when she finally feels ready to emerge, Gerri is asleep on the couch. She hasn’t put her shirt back on and her arms are open, as if she was waiting for Karolina to come back and crawl into them, and Karolina hates her so much she can’t breathe. She hates Gerri for doing it and she hates herself more for falling for it, but she settles in Gerri’s arms anyways, resting her head against Gerri’s chest and shutting her eyes. They’re both far too old to be doing this, the couch isn’t comfortable and it isn’t big enough for the both of them, but Gerri wraps her arms around Karolina in her sleep and tucks Karolina’s head beneath her chin, and Karolina has never slept easier.


End file.
